פרופ' ג'רמי כהן

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JEREMY COHEN is the Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Foundation Professor of European Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. He received degrees in history from Columbia University (B.A., Columbia College Valedictorian, 1974), in Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (B.H.L., 1974), and in history from Cornell University (M.A., 1976; Ph.D., 1978). Before joining the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv, he taught Jewish History at Cornell University (as Coordinator of the Program of Jewish Studies), at The Ohio State University (as Samuel and Esther Melton Chair of Jewish History), and at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. He has also held visiting professorships and lectureships at the College of William and .Mary, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University

Over the years, Cohen’s research and publications have focused on various aspects of the interaction between Judaism and Christianity. Cohen has examined Christian anti-Judaism and Jewish-Christian polemic, as in his The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (1982) and in his edited collection, Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict: From Late Antiquity to the Reformation (1991). He has also researched the ambivalence and nuance that pervade Christian perceptions of the Jews; these topics are explored in Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (1999), and a collection that he edited, From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (1996). The complexities of this ambivalence are compounded in the numerous traditions and ideas shared by the two European religions; some of these Cohen has explored in his “Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (1989), and in Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade (2004). His latest book is Christ-Killers: The Jews and the Passion, from the Bible to the Big Screen, published by Oxford University Press in 2007

Since the publication of Christ Killers, Cohen has edited two collections of essays: The Jewish Contribution to Civilization: Reassessing an Idea (edited with Richard I. Cohen, 2008), and Rethinking European Jewish History (edited with Moshe Rosman, 2009). His current research – funded by a four-year grant from the Israel Science Foundation – concerns Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah (The Rod of Judah), one of the most popular Hebrew books of the sixteenth century, which reacts to the persecution .of Jews in late medieval Spain and Portugal with a retrospective on the tribulations endured by the Jewish people since the days of the Second Temple

Over the years, Cohen’s research has also enjoyed the support of grants from the Danforth Foundation, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. His books have won four National Jewish Book Awards, aswell as prizes from the American Catholic Historical Association, the Ohio Academy of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Historical Society. He recently completed a term as editor of Zion: A Quarterly for Research in Jewish .History and is Associate Editor of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies

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Articles

“Roman Imperial Policy towards the Jews from Constantine until the End of the Palestinian Patriarchate (ca. 429),” Byzantine Studies 3 (1976), 1-29

“The Nasi of Narbonne: A Problem in Medieval Historiography,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 2 (1977), 45-76. Full Text

“The Christian Adversary of Solomon ibn Adret,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 71 (1980), 48-55. Full Text

“Original Sin as the Evil Inclination--A Polemicist’s Appreciation of Human Nature,” Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980), 495-520. Full Text

“Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983), 1-27

“Philosophical Exegesis in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Binding of Isaac,” in Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Tamar Rudavsky, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, D. Reidel Publishers, 1985, pp. 135-42

“The Bible, Man, and Nature in the History of Western Thought: A Call for Reassessment,” Journal of Religion 65 (1985), 155-72. Full Text

“Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom,” American Historical Review 91 (1986), 592-613. Full Text

“Robert Chazan’s ‘Medieval Anti-Semitism’: A Note on the Impact of Theology,” in History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism, ed. David Berger, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1986, pp. 67-72

“The Mentality of the Medieval Jewish Apostate: Peter Alfonsi, Hermann of Cologne, and Pablo Christiani,” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. T.M. Endelman, New York, Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1987, pp. 20-47

“The Friars and the Jews,” in The Many Sides of History: Readings in the Western Heritage, ed. Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987, vol. 1, pp. 187-202.

“Recent Historiography on the Medieval Church and the Decline of European Jewry,” in Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, ed. James Ross Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1989, pp. 251-62.

“Traditional Prejudice and Religious Reform: The Theological and Historical Foundations of Luther's Anti-Judaism,” in Antisemitism in Times of Crisis, ed. Steven Katz and Sander Gilman, New York, New York University Press, 1991, pp. 81-102.

“Introduction,” in Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, ed. Jeremy Cohen, New York, New York University Press, 1991, pp. 1-36.

“Profiat Duran’s The Reproach of the Gentiles and the Development of Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic,” in Shlomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume: Studies on the History of the Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Daniel Carpi, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv

University Press, 1993, pp. 71-84.

“Towards a Functional Classification of Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic in the High Middle Ages,” in Religionsgesprache im Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewohner, Wiesbaden, Germany, Otto Harrassowitz Publishers, 1992, pp. 93-114.

“Rationales for Conjugal Sex in Ra’AbaD’s Ba‘alei ha-Nefesh,” Jewish History 6 (1992), 65-78.

Full Text

“Medieval Jews on Christianity: Polemical Strategies and Theological Defense,” in Interwoven Destinies: Jews and Christians through the Ages, ed. Eugene J. Fisher, New York, Paulist Press, 1993, pp. 77-8.

“On Medieval Judaism and Medieval Studies,” in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 1994, pp. 73-93

“Gezerot Tatnu: Martyrdom and Martyrology in the Hebrew Chronicles of 1096” [in Hebrew], Zion 59 (1994), 169-208

“Isidore of Seville’s Anti-Jewish Polemic: A Reevaluation,” in Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, (Jerusalem, 1994), B1:83-89

“‘Witnesses of Our Redemption’: Jews in the Crusading Theology of Bernard of Clairvaux,” in Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. Bat-Sheva Albert et al., Ramat Gan, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1995, pp. 67-81

“The Oriental Connection: Muslim Influences on Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth Century” [in Hebrew], in Daniel Carpi Jubilee Volume, ed. D. Porat, M. Rozen, and A. Shapira, Tel Aviv University Press, 1996, pp. 59-72

“The Muslim Connection, or, On the Changing Role of the Jew in High Medieval Theology,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, ed. Jeremy Cohen, Wiesbaden, Germany, Otto Harrassowitz Publishers, 1996, pp. 141-62.

“Sexuality and Intentionality in Rabbinic Thought of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries” [in Hebrew], Te‘udah 13 (1997), 155-172.

“The Commandment To ‘Be Fertile and Increase’ and Its Role in Religious Polemics” [in Hebrew], in Sexuality and the Family in History: Collected Essays, ed. Israel Bartal and Isaiah Gafni, Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998, pp. 83-96.

“‘Slay Them Not’: Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship,” Medieval Encounters 4 (1998), 78-92.

“Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999), 431-471. Full Text

“The Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in Their Christian Cultural Context,” in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzuge, ed. Alfred Haverkamp, Sigmaringen, Germany, Jan Thorbecke Publishers, 1999, pp. 17-34.

“The Second Disputation of Paris and Thirteenth-Century Jewish-Christian Polemic” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 68 (1999), 557-579.

“The Crucified Jesus, Jewish Memory, and Counter-History” [in Hebrew], Zmanim 68-69 (1999-2000), 12-29.

“A 1096 Complex? Constructing the First Crusade in Jewish Historical Memory, Medieval and Modern,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Michael Signer and John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 2000, pp. 9-26.

“Between History and Historiography: On the Study of the Persecutions and the Determination of Their Significance” [in Hebrew], in Facing the Cross: The 1096 Persecutions in History and Historiography, Jerusalem, Dinur Institute for Jewish History, 2000, pp. 16-31.

“Raymundus Martini's Capistrum Iudaeorum” [in Hebrew], in Me’ah She‘arim: Studies in Mediebal Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky, ed. Ezra Fleischer et al., Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2001, pp. 279-296.

“Christian Theology and Anti-Jewish Violence in the Middle Ages: Connections and Disjunctions,” in Religious Violence between Christians and Jews: Medieval Roots, Modern Perspectives, ed. Anna Sapir Abulafia, Palgrave Publishers, 2002, pp. 44-60.

“Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, The Song of Songs, and Christianity’s Eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004), 309-340. Full Text

“The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation: Romans 11:25-26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis,” Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 247-281. Full Text

“The Blood Libel in Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah,” in Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture, ed. Mitchell Hart, London, Routledge, 2009, pp. 116-135.

“Augustine’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness Revisited,” Journal of Religion, 89 (2009),

564-578. Full Text

“Antichrist and His Jewish Connections” [in Hebrew], in Rishonim ve-Achronim: Studies in Jewish History Presented to Avraham Grossman, ed. Joseph Hacker et al., Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2010, pp. 29-45.

“‘The Guardian of Israel neither Dozes nor Sleeps’: Exegesis, Polemics, and Politics in the Late Medieval Jewish-Christian Encounter,” in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael Signer Memorial Volume, ed. Franklin T. Harkins, University of Notre Dame Press, 2010, pp. 285-309.

“Polemic and Pluralism: The Jewish-Christian Debate in Solomon Ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah,” forthcoming in Festschrift for Ora Limor, ed. Israel J. Yuval and Ram Ben-Shalom, Brepols Publishers